After purchasing yet another title for her ever-growing and aesthetically pleasing collection of books, Philadelphia resident Frankie Withers announced her love for the written word, despite the fact that she simply loves the idea of owning books.
“I just love reading!” says Frankie, who doesn’t read. “Even when I’m just halfway through a novel, sometimes I’ll be thinking about what I’m going to get next because that’s how much I love it.”
Frankie’s bibliophilia is evidenced by her apartment, which is overflowing with books she’s had since adolescence, books she was gifted and never read, random non-fiction texts she had to buy in college but can’t bring herself to get rid of, and all the books she keeps buying.
“I guess my love of reading stems from childhood,” Frankie says. “We had a wall lined with bookshelves in our living room, and I always really, really loved the way that looked.”
“To this day, I can’t even walk past a used bookstore without having to go inside,” Frankie continues. “I’ll just wander around, and some unnamable quality will always draw me toward a specific volume, and I know I have to get it.”
Sources suggest the unnamable quality is that the book looks cool and she wants to own it.
Those close to Frankie have helped to illuminate the phenomenon.
“It’s not that Frankie doesn’t read or even really like reading,” says her friend Kaya Valle. “I think it’s more that reading is a means to an end and the end is owning books.”
“It’s kind of like when you go and get a coffee even though you have coffee at home,” Kaya adds. “You drink and enjoy the coffee, but really it’s because you want to take a little walk and buy something.”
But Frankie maintains that she’s in it for the love of literature, stating, “I’m just a bookworm and everyone who really knows me knows that.”
When asked why she promptly got rid of the Kindle her aunt gifted her for her birthday last year, Frankie paused.
“Well I just wanted to donate it so that someone else can fall in love with reading, too,” she says. “And Aunt Penny better never pull some shit like that ever again.”
